


infinite

by thetalkingcrocus



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gender-Neutral Runner Five, Multi, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 17:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14501772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetalkingcrocus/pseuds/thetalkingcrocus
Summary: because it’s a kind of memorial, isn’t it?





	infinite

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my tumblr February 3 2015. Spoilers through the end of S2, up to and including S3M5.

     You’ve never been one for spur of the moment decisions, and especially not ones made within the walls of Abel. Enough split second life or death choices are thrust upon you in the field, and so it is nearly two months after her death that you begin your preparations.

     The first thing you learn is that tattoo shops were, luckily for you, not the priority for the looters of the post-apocalypse world. Eugene – because he’s agreed, he and a friend called Zoe who is in from New Canton to visit, to be your backup on this project- leads you to many a glass-windowed parlor. Sometimes the glass is intact, more often it is not. Sometimes the gaping storefronts are barred by fancy curlicues of metal that are just as effective as they are decorative. Eventually, though, you do breach a few of the stores, making your way out with a backpack full of necessary supplies and a head full of ideas.

     The second thing you learn is that tattoo equipment is heavy. You carry the load anyway, because it will all be worth it, even the heavy clank of the machine and its clunky battery pack against your spine.

     You collect inks in many colors but you end up picking a deep dark blue: the ocean late in the day when the tide is its own siren song and the water pulls back just enough to show the jagged rocks underneath, a triumphant row that reminds you, when you run there, of her smile. It’s the color of the route she gave you.

     It’s not a complicated design. It’s only one line, varying in thickness: it looks like a brushstroke, or at least that’s how you hope it turns out. The fact that they’re bantering while tattooing you is slightly worrying but at least Jack has given up on doing the tattoo live on the air by the time it transfers from ink on paper in your clammy hands to your skin.

     It hurts.

     You’ve had worse.

     It’s on your trigger finger. It’s not a big tattoo, not showy. It’s quiet, like you, as though it was meant to be a part of you.

     “Runner Five,” Eugene says, tilting his head to the side as you walk out of the curtained off section of the hospital where he and Zoe had finished their work, “why an infinity symbol? On your trigger finger? Is it meant to say you’ll be shooting forever? That’s a little morbid, don’t you think”

     Sam sidles up to you and watches, head tilting like a curious bird. His eyes widen as he looks at your tattoo, his lips quirk with understanding. “It’s not an infinity sign, is it Five?”

     You shake your head.

     “Oh-“ Eugene says, understanding rushing through him, apologies rising from his mouth.

     “It’s an eight.” Sam says definitively and he reaches out as you nod; takes your hand, laces your fingers together. Your hands fit and yet you can still feel the space she should be taking up.

     “It’s an eight.” you repeat, softly.  

     He gets a matching one the next day, over his heart and if you close your eyes and think of her smile and feel Sam next to you, you can almost pretend that Eugene’s assumption wasn’t a mistake after all. You can almost pretend your eight was infinite.


End file.
